Stephen Colbert Predicts the ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Ending

Stephen Colbert may be the wildly successful host of a popular late night talk show on a major television network, but that doesn’t change who he really is: a huge nerd. Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson said of Colbert, “I have never met a bigger Tolkien geek in my life.” The Late Show host appeared in The Desolation of Smaug and hosted a Hobbit panel at Comic-Con. But his geek cred is not limited to Middle Earth. Last night, Colbert delivered an impassioned prediction of how Star Wars: The Force Awakens will end, and the funniest thing is, he wasn’t joking.

Colbert admits that he’s “good friends” with J.J. Abrams (he’s moderating a Q&A for charity with the Star Wars director next month in his home state of New Jersey), but clarifies up front that Abrams has told him absolutely nothing about the movie. That said, Colbert, after seeing the Force Awakens trailer, has some ideas of his own.

It has been three decades since the event of the original trilogy. The dark and mysterious First Order has stepped into the power vacuum once held by the Empire, and the newly named Resistance fights in place of the Rebel Alliance, which has begun a tragic shift to the dark side.

But John Boyega’s character is in a stormtrooper suit, so it follows that now the NEW hope comes from the very enemy we’ve been trained to hate — remember the Dark Side was never exclusively tied to the Empire. The Force itself exists outside of mere temporal authority structures.

So I predict that dark becomes light, light becomes dark, the very fabric of The Force is stretched to its limit, as a new generation emerges to tear down the false distinctions of the past and unite all of us - old and new, moisture farmers and nerf herders, Star and Wars, once and for all bringing peace to the galaxy.

That’s…actually a pretty well thought and cogent analysis. Pretty sure Jimmy Fallon just watched the Star Wars trailer and giggled to himself for thirty minutes.

We may disagree that this is actually what happens in the film — that heroes come from the First Order and villains from the Resistance — but it’s not above J.J. Abrams to turn an expectation on its head.

We’ll guess that Abrams will address Colbert’s theory on November 21, when the two meet for their Montclair Film Festival panel. Colbert, and the rest of us, will find out the truth when Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in theaters on December 18.